Gilbert high schools were honored last week with the College Board’s Advanced Placement Honor Roll.
High schools in the Higley and Gilbert unified school districts were given the honor because they increased the number of students taking AP exams while also maintaining or improving the rate of students who received a 3 or higher. The top score is 5.
Only three districts in Arizona received the honor this year among the 539 nationwide. Glendale Union High School District was also honored.
All five Gilbert Unified high schools — Gilbert, Mesquite, Highland, Desert Ridge and Campo Verde — received a surprise visit early this month by an official with the national organization prior to the official release this week.
Advanced Placement courses offer college-level curriculum to students in subjects from science to English to math and more. Gilbert and Higley offer Advanced Placement classes at all of their high schools. Last year, no Arizona districts made the roll.
“It’s a three-year process to make it, so we’re excited to have achieved this,” said Higley assistant superintendent Mike Thomason, who oversees the student services department. “I’m extremely proud of our AP administrators and teachers for developing programs for college and career readiness. In working with Higley High School principal Larry Rother and Williams Field High School principal Shawn Lynch, we have emphasized student career and college readiness for all of our graduates.”
Gilbert district officials echoed the ideas.
“Gilbert teachers and administrators have provided the necessary support and encouragement to challenge and motivate high school students to pursue a more rigorous pathway. I am impressed with their focused efforts and our students’ achievement, which will greatly benefit them in their post-secondary pursuits,” Barb VeNard, assistant superintendent of educational services, said in a release.
According to a release, more than 90 percent of colleges and universities across the United States offer college credit, advanced placement or both for a score of 3 or above on an AP exam.
Contact writer: (480) 898-6549 or mreese@evtrib.com
WesternConnections posted at 4:26 pm on Wed, Nov 21, 2012.
Folks, it's important to know that The College Board, the entity making this award, is one and the same vendor that sells the Advanced Placement curriculum to school districts. There's an incredible amount of money at stake, but this award is not worth the paper it's printed on..
Connect the dots: The College Board, which also administers Advanced-Placement exams, has tried to make AP classes mandatory in every California high school. Nationally, in the Class of 2011, more than 1.6 million high-school seniors had taken the SAT, a 30 percent increase from a decade ago. The test costs $49. Sending SAT scores to up to four colleges is free, after which it costs students $10.50 for every additional college. Rush delivery is an additional $30 per school. AP exams cost $87 each, and students took 3.1 million of these tests in the 2009-10 school year. When The College Board was getting this scheme started in Florida, we had two kids in Florida high schools. The key to implementation, which was touted nationally as a great success, was that students DID NOT PAY to take the exams. The College Board gave the state a reduced price per student, so lots of kids enrolled in AP classes and took those exams to simulate a greater demand than there was. Of course, that was used as a "model" for other states and districts.
The College Board also is the vendor for the SpringBoard curriculum, which is controversial across the nation, but was pushed on the GPS board, who had to make a decision right then, right there, even though parents and teachers implored the board to reject it. Sorry, Highley and Gilbert public relations departments, this award is not what it seems.